IELTS Reading: architecture and cities passages
Buildings, bridges and cities: how they are designed, built and planned.
41 passages mainly about architecture and cities · 62 more that touch on it · from 94 full tests
Passages mainly about architecture and cities
Each passage opens as a timed 20-minute practice with its 13–14 questions. Submit to see your band estimate and the sentence that proves every answer.
- Rethinking the Open-Plan Office
- Green Cities, Healthy Citizens?
- Rethinking Urban Sprawl
- Should City Centres Ban Cars?
- Smart Cities, Private Lives?
- The Ethics of Restoring Historic Buildings
- Brutalist Architecture Reconsidered
- Bringing Nature Indoors
- The House That Hardly Needs Heating
- Reaching for Heaven: How Gothic Cathedrals Were Built
- Building Hagia Sophia
- Should Historic Town Centres Limit New Architecture?
- The Building of the Taj Mahal
- Should Old Prisons Become Museums?
- The Anatomy of a Castle
- Reading the Timber Frame
- Heritage or Homes?
- The Georgian Terraced House
- Should Twentieth-Century Concrete Buildings Be Preserved?
- An Iron Tower on the Champ de Mars
- Should Cathedrals Charge Tourists for Entry?
- The Colosseum of Rome
- Craft, Conservation and the Apprentice
- Water for the Ottoman Capital
- The Forbidden City
- The First Public Parks
- The Rock Churches of Lalibela
- Lighting Up the Past
- Should Cities Keep the Scars of War?
- Rebuilding the Past
- The Ice Houses of Persia
- Why an Igloo Keeps You Warm
- The Bridge That Is Rebuilt Every Year
- Should Cities Be Designed with Children in Mind?
- Should New Buildings Copy Historic Styles?
- The Mongolian Ger
- The Great Mosque of Djenne
- Should Cities Build Higher?
- The Stepwells of India
- Should Cities Protect Green Belts Around Them?
- Building the Sydney Opera House
Other passages that cover architecture and cities
These passages have a different main subject but deal with architecture and cities along the way.
62 passages
- The Urban Heat Island
- Beneath the Streets of London
- The Office and the City
- The Story of Concrete
- Too Many Visitors?
- The Builders of Stonehenge
- Hanging in the Air: The Suspension Bridge
- Rivers Above the Ground
- The Grass That Builds Cities
- Raising the Great Pyramid
- The Water System of Angkor
- The Urban Magnet: Migration and the Future of Cities
- Scooters and the City
- Listening to Bridges
- Wood That Thinks It Is Concrete
- The Price of a Spare Room
- Glass with a Switch
- The Town Centre and the Algorithm
- Building Hadrian's Wall
- Four Days in September 1666
- Should Ruins Be Rebuilt?
- Trajan's Column
- How a Roman Bath Worked
- The Rediscovery of Mohenjo-daro
- The City of Stone
- Hearing the Chorus
- The Palace of Knossos and the Minoans
- The Last Days of Pompeii
- The Pharos of Alexandria
- The City Carved from Rock
- The Island City of Tenochtitlan
- Should Old Industrial Sites Become Heritage Attractions?
- The Gate of Ishtar
- Rescuing the Past, Losing the Place
- The Wall the Ming Built
- The Great Exhibition of 1851
- Lighting the Night Streets
- Should Old Graveyards Make Way for the Living?
- The Camps of the Roman Legions
- Castles of the Conquest
- Building a Capital in the Marshes
- The Great Houses of Chaco Canyon
- The Mounds of Cahokia
- The Rediscovery of Machu Picchu
- The Globe Theatre
- Should Cities Replace Lawns with Wildflower Meadows?
- Should Solar Panels Be Compulsory on New Homes?
- The Town Without Streets
- Taking the Kerb
- Should Cities Ban Outdoor Advertising?
- Chan Chan, the Adobe City of the Chimú
- How a Termite Mound Stays Cool
- When the Rain Arrives
- Ghadames: The Pearl of the Desert
- Sigiriya: The Rock Fortress of Sri Lanka
- Should the Olympic Games Have a Permanent Home?
- Making Sense of a Strange City
- Why Some Cities Are Sinking
- The Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde
- The Tea Houses of Japan
- Should Cities Bring Back Trams?
- The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul
Key architecture and cities vocabulary
Words worth knowing before you read about architecture and cities, each with the sentence it appears in.
| Word | Meaning | Example from a passage |
|---|---|---|
| authenticity noun | the quality of being genuinely what it claims to be, not a copy | “the case against reconstruction rests on the idea of authenticity” Test 412 |
| fabric noun | the physical structure of a building, including its walls and materials | “it has done much to protect old fabric from well-meaning improvement” Test 412 |
| conjecture noun | an opinion based on incomplete evidence; a guess rather than a certainty | “reconstruction should be ruled out in advance and that restoration should stop where conjecture begins” Test 412 |
| irreplaceable adjective | too valuable or special to be replaced by anything else | “Replace that material and something irreplaceable is lost, however skilful the copy” Test 412 |
| objection noun | a reason for disagreeing with or opposing something | “Archaeologists and historians raise a quieter objection. A ruined building is a document.” Test 412 |
| excavated verb | dug out of the ground to make a hole or space | “a deep pit excavated below the level of the surrounding ground” Test 423 |
| durable adjective | able to last a long time without being damaged | “The result was water-resistant and remarkably durable, and it helps to explain why so many ice houses are still standing” Test 423 |
| insulating adjective | preventing heat from passing into or out of something | “they were covered with straw and other insulating material” Test 423 |
| ingenuity noun | the quality of being clever and inventive in solving problems | “Producing the ice in the first place required just as much ingenuity” Test 423 |
| masonry noun | the brick or stone of which a building is made | “Rainwater entered cracks in the brickwork, froze in winter and forced the masonry apart” Test 423 |
| insulator noun | a material that slows the movement of heat through it | “the air trapped between the ice grains is an excellent insulator” Test 426 |
| density noun | the amount of mass contained in a given volume of a substance | “the insulating value of snow depends heavily on its density and on the wind” Test 426 |
| modelled verb | represented the behaviour of something using calculations or a simplified version | “Engineers who have modelled snow houses on computers point out” Test 426 |
| glaze noun | a thin smooth shiny layer formed on a surface | “refreezes into a thin, hard glaze that gives the structure extra strength” Test 426 |
| condensation noun | small drops of water that form when vapour cools on a surface | “the air becomes foul and the interior surfaces stream with condensation” Test 426 |
| astonishment noun | great surprise at something unusual or impressive | “Spanish officials arriving during the sixteenth century described these crossings with astonishment” Test 443 |
| obligation noun | a duty that a person or group feels bound to carry out | “the communities regard its reconstruction as an obligation rather than a chore” Test 443 |
| rigid adjective | stiff and unable to bend or move easily | “The bridge is not rigid: it sags in the centre and sways as it is crossed” Test 443 |
| successively adverb | one after another in a series, each following the previous one | “by means of it successively heavier ropes are hauled from one side to the other” Test 443 |
| transmitted verb | passed from one person or generation to another | “it is transmitted by participation, as children watch and then assist” Test 443 |
| indispensable adjective | so necessary that it is impossible to manage without it | “push every destination beyond walking range and make the car indispensable” Test 463 |
| restrained verb | held back or kept under control, often by physical means | “the car is a guest and speed is restrained by the design of the road itself” Test 463 |
| inadequate adjective | not good enough for the purpose it is meant to serve | “has been the standard answer to children in the city, and it is an inadequate one” Test 463 |
| roam verb | to wander over an area without a fixed destination | “the distances they were permitted to roam had contracted sharply” Test 463 |
Question types in these passages
- True / False / Not Given · 38 passages
- Multiple choice · 34 passages
- Yes / No / Not Given · 31 passages
- Matching features · 20 passages
- Summary completion · 16 passages
- Summary completion (word list) · 15 passages
- Multiple choice (choose more than one) · 15 passages
- Note completion · 15 passages
- Table completion · 15 passages
- Matching information · 14 passages
- Matching sentence endings · 13 passages
- Flow-chart completion · 12 passages
- Diagram label completion · 11 passages
- Short-answer questions · 11 passages
- Sentence completion · 10 passages
- Matching headings · 10 passages